"For 14 years Paula Lucas lived what looked like an ideal life as
an American overseas wife: A Newsweek photojournalist husband,
worldwide travel, a successful advertising, marketing and PR
business, and three beautiful sons. She also hides a terrible
secret-the children suffered severe child abuse and Paula, horrific
domestic violence, at the hands of her husband, making every day a
nightmare. As the violence increased, so did her desperation. In
1997, she finally disclosed the abuse to her brother in California.
Her family called the State Department, congress people and
senators. Paula went to the American Embassy and pleaded for help.
Their efforts were futile. Finally her chance to escape
materialized, thanks to a thief who stole her husband's passport
and money on a train in Germany, which caused her husband to be
locked outside of the country. Paula searched her husband's offices
for the children's American passports which her husband had hidden.
After a month of searching, she was about to give up. In despair,
Paula sat sobbing with her face in her hands. That's when she
believes a guardian angel pointed her back to a file she had
already checked, and inside, were the children's passports. Without
access to her own money, Paula forged her husband's signature on a
check for just enough money to get them to her sister's house in
Oregon. She also forged her husband's signature on documents giving
her permission to leave the country with the children. She knew if
she were caught, she would be put in prison, or worse. But she also
knew that the possible damage when her husband returned was very
high. In the middle of the night, with one suitcase and her three
children, she took a taxi to the airport in Dubai and prayed. Paula
tried not to show her fear as they shuffled through immigration and
boarded a flight to New York, and to freedom. Once in New York, the
four of them piled onto a train to Oregon; a three day journey. At
her sister's house outside of Portland, Paula's relief was
short-lived. She found out that even though she, the children, and
her husband were all Americans, he had the right to fight her for
jurisdiction and force her to take the boys back to the Middle
East-a certain death sentence. In disbelief, she fled her sister's
house and went into hiding, living in shelters, on food stamps, and
welfare while fighting a costly legal battle; she never expected to
keep her American children in the United States. If she lost, she
vowed she would go underground and disappear permanently rather
than take her children back. The battle lasted eighteen months and
cost tens of thousands of dollars. Finally, the Oregon courts ruled
that Paula could keep her sons in Oregon. She was granted divorce
and custody in September 2000, but no child support, alimony, or
court costs. Her husband received supervised visitation of the
children.Despite experiencing homelessness, poverty, and extreme
debt (over $60,000), after years of abuse, Paula felt she had been
given a second chance. She resolved to help other abused American
women and children around the world so they would not have to go
through what she and her children went through." While living in a
shelter, Paula founded a nonprofit organization, American Women
Overseas, and began her work." Sadly, this is not an isolated
situation. In fact, the structure and lifestyle of living as an
expatriate is almost the perfect scenario for someone to carry out
abusive acts. The foundation of domestic violence is that abusers
want to dominate and control everything in order to get their own
way. This can easily be achieved by living away from the support
and visibility of friends and family. In most expatriate families,
the man is the person on assignment and the spouse is the
attachment to his visa, work permit, company package and is bound
by visa restriction and cannot work. As a result, the woman can
feel beholden, guilty, and obligated to her husband beca